


we should just kiss like real people do

by vixleonard



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cousin Incest, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Father-Daughter Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Marriage of Convenience, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Period-Typical Sexism, R Plus L Equals J, Secret Marriage, Secret Relationship, Shotgun Wedding, Sister-Sister Relationship, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:41:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22487284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vixleonard/pseuds/vixleonard
Summary: It's funny how quickly secrets can multiply.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 110
Kudos: 424





	1. i will not ask you where you came from

**Author's Note:**

> Title and chapter titles come from "Like Real People Do" by Hozier

Later, when she sits down and tries to figure out how everything went so wrong, Sansa will place the blame at Lady’s feet. If not for her direwolf leading her into the godswood that fateful day, everything could’ve been avoided.

But Lady _did_ tug on her leash, wanting to head into the godswood, and Sansa allowed it.

And nothing was ever the same again.

* * *

She sees Ghost before she sees Jon. Lady begins to whine, tossing her head, and Sansa slips her lead off so the wolf can greet her brother. It is only as Lady curls up alongside Ghost, resting her head atop his larger one, Sansa sees Jon kneeling before the heart tree. She is about to apologize for interrupting his prayers when she realizes he isn’t whispering words the way Father does; Jon is _crying_ , shoulders bouncing, hands wiping at his face, and though he is as quiet as his wolf, Sansa thinks he may as well be screaming for as strange as this is.

Of course, mayhaps it isn’t strange at all. She and Jon aren’t close, not like Jon and Robb or Jon and Arya, and for all she knows, Jon comes to the godswood to weep regularly without her knowledge. Regardless, Sansa cannot help but ask, “Are you hurt? Should I fetch Maester Luwin?”

Jon starts as if she’s struck him, getting to his feet as he wipes at his cheeks. “No, I’m not hurt.”

“Do you…I can get Robb or Arya.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t – I can’t talk to them.”

“Why not?” When Jon says nothing, turning away from her, she considers letting the whole thing go. Of all of her brothers, she is least close to Jon, and she doesn’t think he cares much for her. If the situation was reversed, she wouldn’t want Jon to bother her. But Sansa’s never been able to stand when someone is in pain, and that is why she pushes, why she makes the offer that will change both of their lives.

“I’m good at keeping secrets. If you don’t want to tell them, you could tell me.”

Jon doesn’t turn to face her as he shakes his head again. “I can’t. Father made me swear.”

At once Sansa understands why Jon is upset. Their father may have secrets like all men do, but Sansa can think of only one that still gets whispered about through Winterfell’s hallways. Sansa herself has tried to learn the truth of the secret, wanting to know who their father loved so dearly that he brought her child back to be raised amongst his trueborn children. From the time she’s known what “bastard” meant, Sansa’s understood how much Jon Snow’s presence at Winterfell hurts her mother, and it is why she’s always kept him at a distance. 

But it’s unfair their father kept a secret for so long only to finally tell Jon and swear him to secrecy as well.

“He told you about your mother, didn’t he?”

Jon finally turns, and the pain on his face is so raw, Sansa cannot help but move to him, wrapping her arms around his body. Jon is tense for a moment before seeming to melt against her, his hands clutching her cloak a bit too tight, and Sansa tries to remember the last time they embraced, the last time they even touched.

“I won’t tell a soul. I swear it to the old gods and the new.” She brushes her hand over his dark curls as if he is Rickon’s age. “You can trust me.”

Jon pulls back, meeting her gaze, and whatever he sees in her face makes him nod. They sit in front of the heart tree, Sansa cradling his hand in hers, patiently waiting for Jon to tell her the secret.

“My mother was – She was – “ Jon swallows hard, tears filling his eyes again. “Lyanna.”

“Lyanna who?” And then it hits her, and the repulsion she feels towards their father is so strong, Sansa fears she’ll vomit. “ _Aunt_ Lyanna? Father and Aunt Lyanna – “

“No! Gods, no, not – not that! Father isn’t – He isn’t my father, not by blood.” As an overwhelming sense of relief floods her body, Jon continues, “When he found her in the Tower of Joy, she had birthing fever. She made him promise – promise to protect me.”

“The Tower of Joy,” she echoes, scrambling to make sense of what he is saying. “If Aunt Lyanna is your mother and he found her in the Tower of Joy, then your father…?”

Jon nods, tears on his cheeks again, and Sansa finds herself needing to say it aloud, needing confirmation that what she believes is the truth.

“Your father was Rhaegar Targaryen. You’re – you’re the last Targaryen.”

“Not the last,” he corrects, voice cracking. “Father – Lord Stark – I don’t – Gods, what do I call him now?” He exhales, shaking his head. “He said Prince Viserys and Princess Daenerys are in Essos…somewhere, that some knight took them away from Dragonstone before King Robert could reach them. My mother knew what happened to Princess Elia’s children and was afraid the same would happen to me.” 

Sansa closes her eyes, wincing at the mention of poor Princess Elia. Of all the histories Maester Luwin taught her, the story of Elia Martell and her children is the one that haunts her. And if what Jon says is true, if what their _father_ says is true, those poor children murdered during the sack were Jon’s half-siblings.

“King Robert will never know. You have more of the Stark look than I do. No one would ever suspect – “

“I don’t care about that. I’m not a babe anymore; I can protect myself.”

“I’m sorry your mother is gone. I’m sure you wish – “

“I do,” he cuts in, “but I never thought I would know her. I wasn’t even certain Father would even tell me her name.”

“Then what – “

“I always knew I wasn’t one of you, a Snow among the Starks, Ned Stark’s bastard, never good enough, never entitled to anything. But I thought at least – I was still your brother. Baseborn or not, bastard or not, Robb, you, Arya, Bran, Rickon, you were _my_ brothers and sisters, and I was your brother. Now I’m not even that.”

“Jon – “

“’M just your bastard cousin now, not even a part of you – “

“Stop it!” she snaps, startling him with the edge to her words. “That’s not true at all. No matter what Father told you, it’s not meant to be known; you said so yourself. Robb, Arya, Bran, Rickon, they’ll all go to their graves believing you to be our brother, and they’ll love you as such. Look at Ghost! If you weren’t one of us, if you weren’t a Stark of Winterfell, you’d hardly have a direwolf like the rest of us. You’re still part of us, part of our house.”

“You’ve never thought I was part of this house.”

“That’s not true.” When Jon only looks at her, she admits, “I may not have always been kind, but it wasn’t about you. It’s just…You were proof our father betrayed my mother, and I love my mother.” Sansa sighs. “If he’d told her the truth, it would have been different.”

“He won’t. He said he’s never told anyone, not even Uncle Benjen. He’ll never tell your mother.”

“Then it’ll be different _now_ between us.” She squeezes his hand, wringing a small smile from him. “I wish I had a secret to give you as important as the one you’ve told me, but I fear I’m far too boring just as Arya says.”

“You don’t owe me a secret.” His smile is softer, kinder, as he says, “Thank you, Sansa.”

“Of course. What are sisters for?”

It is odd, carrying such a large secret and for Jon of all people, but Sansa swears to herself she will never tell a single soul for the rest of her life who Jon’s true parents were. Starting that day, she decides, she will be the good sister to him she hasn’t been thus far in their lives. 

Someday she will laugh at how naïve she was.

* * *

Her sixteenth name day dawns bright and beautiful. Sansa hadn’t even risen from her bed yet when she notices the bouquet of flowers bound together with a ribbon on her bedside table. She recognizes most of the blooms as wildflowers but there are a few winter roses mixed in among them. As she lifts them to her nose, inhaling their sweet scents, she wonders if her mother left them, knowing how much Sansa loves flowers.

But neither her mother nor her father admits to the sneaking the bouquet into her chamber, so she moves on to her brothers. Robb has been known to do such kindnesses in the past, but he shakes his head, suggesting Bran as the most likely option. It certainly makes the most sense out of the remaining options; Arya finds flowers impractical as gifts, Rickon would be far more likely to leave something like a mud pie, and while Theon has been known to press his luck with her father’s rules, Sansa doesn’t think even he would dare risk being caught sneaking into her chamber.

It isn’t until she steps out into the yard, the bouquet in her hands, she catches sight of Jon for the first time. He is watching Bran and Rickon spar, offering corrections when necessary, and when he sees her, Sansa is able to see the blush in his cheeks before he looks away. She finds herself crossing to where her younger brothers hack at each other with wooden swords, Bran shouting complaints that Rickon isn’t following the rules, and Jon warns Rickon they’ll stop if he doesn’t quit swinging his sword like an axe.

Sansa waits until the boys have started again before she murmurs to Jon, “Thank you for my flowers.”

“I know they’re not much.”

“They’re lovely.” When he offers no other words, Sansa finds herself asking, “How did you get them into my room?”

“You’re a heavy sleeper.”

She’s never considered what sort of sleeper she is. “I am?”

He nods, a teasing smile tugging at his lips. “You snore as well.”

“I do not!”

“How would you know? You’re asleep.”

“Because I’m a lady, and ladies don’t snore.”

“Ladies snore.”

“Oh, you’ve been with enough sleeping ladies to know?”

It takes a moment for her to realize the implication of what she’s said, and judging by the way Jon’s eyes widen, he realizes it as well. Sansa begins to stammer, feeling the hot rush of blood to her cheeks, and suddenly all she can think about is whether or not Jon has bedded a lady, if he’s joined Theon and Robb on their visits into winter town, if he has a secret lover in Winterfell.

And then Jon says, in a voice Sansa doesn’t remember being so deep, “You’re the only woman I’ve seen abed.”

Later, when she’s in her bed again, the rest of the castle asleep, Sansa conjures up the husky rumble of Jon’s voice as she touches herself between her legs, biting her lip to the point of pain to keep from crying out his name when she peaks.

* * *

Robb weds Wynafryd Manderly in Winterfell’s sept before the ceremony in the godswood, and while Sansa thinks it secretly pleases their mother, she suspects just as strongly that it displeases her father. The rather enormous Lord Manderly has brought a large retinue from White Harbor, including the bride’s parents, her younger sister Wylla, a seemingly endless amount of people whose relation to Wynafryd Sansa cannot keep straight, and a collection of musicians and bards. Sansa can tell from her father’s expression he thinks all of this is a waste of money, wedding or not, but there are whispers Lord Manderly was prepared to spend near every dragon in his coffers to guarantee one of his granddaughters would be the future Lady of Winterfell.

Jon doesn’t join them in the sept for the ceremony. Sansa wants to protest that he deserves a place there as much as any of them, but she also knows Jon doesn’t keep the Seven, didn’t learn about the New Gods like they had. In the godswood, he stands amongst the household members like Ser Rodrik and Jory Cassel, and when Sansa’s eyes find his, he offers her a small smile. He looks very fine in the new doublet Father had made for him, his inky curls held back in a knot at the base of his neck, his beard neatly trimmed to frame his pink lips. 

_He’s so handsome_ , she thinks as Robb and Wynafryd vow to belong only to each other for the rest of their lives.

It appears she is not the only one who thinks so because, as the feast begins, multiple women who have traveled from White Harbor are suddenly flirting with Jon, batting their eyes, smiling, coaxing him into dances he performs stiffly. The only time she glimpses a real smile on his face is when Arya flings herself into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and letting him swing her around the floor as if she is still a child. As Sansa watches them, she realizes she’s never had that sort of comfort with _any_ of her siblings, never allowed herself to be as free as Arya is, not just with him but _anyone_ she loves. It almost makes her wonder if perhaps their father was wrong, that _Sansa_ is the one who doesn’t truly belong.

Some knight who came from White Harbor will not leave her be. Already Sansa has danced with him twice, smiled through a conversation about his accomplishments, and allowed him to fetch her a cup of wine she didn’t actually want, but still he persists in seeking her attentions. There is a nasty part of her that wants to tell him her father will never let her marry so far beneath her, that a knighthood does not make him enough to wed a daughter of Winterfell, but she is far too much her mother’s daughter to ever allow such impolite and cruel words to slip past her lips.

The knight is midway through another request to partner her around her floor when Jon is suddenly at his elbow, an expression on his face that is superficially pleasant, but Sansa can see the hint of something darker underneath, and it takes a moment for Jon’s words to sink in.

“Yes, of course, please excuse me, ser,” Sansa says, brushing past the knight as Jon takes her arm to lead her to the floor. 

“You have quite the admirer,” he says as he clumsily positions his hands for the dance.

Sansa rolls her eyes, correctly his grip until he is holding her properly. “I’m surprised you even noticed through your own throng of admirers.”

“A man would have to be blind not to notice you.”

“You never noticed me before. It used to be you wouldn’t even look at me.”

Sansa feels the hand on her back press more firmly against her, his fingers splaying and then flexing a bit before settling flat again. “I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I thought I was your brother.”

“And brothers don’t look at their sisters?”

“Not the way I was.”

“How were you?”

Jon looks downright pained as he murmurs, “You must know how beautiful you are.”

She does. It is something she’d never admit aloud, but it is all she has heard since she was a girl, the only compliment it seems anyone ever pays her. There have been times it angers her, how Arya gets to be smart and wild and brave, and all she gets to be is beautiful. But the way Jon says it, it’s different from Father or Mother or even Robb; it is less an observation and more an accusation.

“I’m sorry it offends you.”

“Offends me?” Jon shakes his head with a sad little laugh. “The only good thing that’s come from what Lord Stark told me is knowing, at least, I’m not…”

“You’re not what?”

She feels his hand press firmer against her back, bringing her a bit closer, and she goes willingly. “Not a degenerate who lusts after his little sister.”

Before she can think of a response, the hall explodes with shouts and activity as the crowd begins to shout for Robb and Wynafryd to be bedded. As people rush towards the head table, Sansa stumbles into Jon, who holds her more firmly against him, frowning at the way the drunken wedding guests do not seem to care about trampling them.

“I hate this part,” Sansa says, her stomach churning uneasily as she watches Wynafryd swallowed up by the sea of men with their grasping hands.

It takes her a moment to realize Jon is leading her out of the hall, but she is grateful for it. When they are in the relative quiet of the corridor, she exhales, sagging against him, and declares, “I dread the day that happens to me.”

Jon says nothing, his handsome face inscrutable, and Sansa is about to excuse herself all together when he steps into her, one rough hand cupping the side of her face, before his lips press against hers. She’s never had a true kiss, has no idea what she is meant to do or how to do it, but Sansa finds herself parting her lips for Jon’s tongue, her hands resting on the firm wall of his chest.

And then Jon is pulling away, as out of breath as she is, and he’s apologizing, moving away from her, and Sansa finds herself alone in the corridor, heart racing, blood singing, and deeply confused by what just happened.

* * *

Jon avoids her for the fortnight after Robb’s wedding, going so far as to ride to the Cerwyns’ castle to handle business for Father. When he rides back into Winterfell, Arya jumps up from their embroidery session overseen by Septa Mordane to race out into the yard, ignoring their septa’s shouting of her name. Sansa keeps her back ramrod straight as Jeyne Poole makes some kind of comment about Arya, her eyes fixed on her careful stitches.

It is another two days after his return before Sansa finally gathers the nerve to confront him about what happened the night of Robb’s wedding. Each time she enters a room he is in, Jon leaves at once, and finding actual privacy at Winterfell is next to impossible. It is what drives her to tiptoe through the darkened corridors to reach Jon’s chamber. When she tries to door, it is unlocked, and she quickly slips inside, pressing her body against the door to guarantee it is shut. Jon, stripped to the waist, washing up in the basin against the far wall, doesn’t stop from toweling off his face as he says with good-natured irritation, “Arya, I told you, you’re too old to come into my room – “

“It’s not Arya.”

Jon whips around at once, his grey eyes wide. Sansa is certain her eyes are just as wide. Growing up with four brothers and Theon, she’s seen them all without their shirts on, but once she flowered, her mother and Septa Mordane stopped allowing her to swim with them. As such, she hasn’t seen Jon like this in years, and he certainly looks different now; she can make out every line of muscle on his chest and stomach, and the dark hair arrowing down his stomach and disappearing into his pants is new as well.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in your chamber before,” she says to fill the silence, hoping her voice doesn’t tremble the way her hands are. “Isn’t that odd? Though maybe it isn’t. You were always closer to Arya, and Mother said it wasn’t appropriate for us to play in the boys’ chambers – “

“Sansa.”

She swallows down the rest of her rambling words, trying to find the poise Septa Mordane always praises her for possessing. But she doesn’t feel poised, and she wants to flinch at how meek she sounds when she says, “You kissed me.”

He twists the rag in his hands, that same pained expression from the wedding on his face again. “I’m sorry.”

“Because you regret it?” When he says nothing, she finds herself taking a few steps to close the distance between them. “Or because you don’t?”

“You’re my sister.”

“I’m your cousin.” Stepping around the footboard of his bed, she adds, “There’s nothing wrong with feeling – “

“Sansa, we _can’t_ \- “

“No one has to know. It could be our secret, like Queen Naerys and the Dragonknight.” Now close enough to touch him, Sansa cannot help but touch his cheek. Jon exhales heavily, moving into the touch. “No one has to know.”

Later, when everything goes to all seven hells, she knows everyone blames Jon, but _she_ is the one who went to him, _she_ is the one who coaxed him to the breaking point.

But Sansa also knows no one will ever believe her capable of such a thing because people don’t care about the truth, not really. They just like the stories that make them comfortable.

* * *

As a highborn lady, especially one who flowered early, Sansa has received multiple lectures regarding how important it is to safeguard her maidenhead. Both Septa Mordane and her mother told her how dishonorable men who admired her beauty would try to lure her into trouble. Of course, they never specified what exactly that trouble was, but Sansa thought it was simple enough to avoid getting into such trouble. 

Then she started spending every spare moment she had in Jon’s arms, and suddenly she understood perfectly.

At first, they have rules: kissing only, touches only above their clothing, never lying down while embracing. They are both disciplined people, Sansa reasons; it should be enough. But she hadn’t expected the fire in her blood, the desperate desire that fills her more and more each time, the absolute _want_ for something she couldn’t even name but knew would temporarily quench her thirst. Jon is usually the one who puts a stop to their trysts, red-faced and panting, insisting they stop before things go too far.

The first time she pants against his mouth, “Mayhaps I want to go too far,” he groans as if she slid a blade between his ribs and makes her peak with clever fingers over her smallclothes.

The rules start to fray. She slides her hand beneath his smallclothes, blushing furiously at the feel of his cock in her hand even as she shivers with desire at the moan he muffles against her throat. Jon unlaces her gown, bearing her to the waist, sucking blooms onto her breasts that are tender to the touch. Straddling Jon’s lap turns into him tumbling her onto her back, and Sansa curses at her skirts, trying to work them up so she can feel him pressed against her. 

There are still lines they do not cross. Jon made her swear she will not sneak into his room again, and she’s honored the promise. Even as they kiss and touch, they do not remove their smallclothes, a flimsy barrier they pretend will stop them from making a decision they cannot undo. That rules holds longer than any of the others, almost three entire moons of desire and frustration, of learning what she likes and what _he_ likes, and then the raven arrives from Highgarden.

When her parents call her into Father’s solar, she isn’t certain what to expect. If she was going to be chastised for her latest spat with Arya, Arya would be present as well, and if she thinks about it, she and Arya haven’t fought nearly as much in the past year. For a horrible half-second she thinks they might know about her and Jon, but she’d passed Jon and Robb in the yard on her way into the castle, the two of them laughing about something, and if they knew she’d spent the previous afternoon grinding against Jon behind the glass gardens, there is no way Jon would be laughing in the yard.

“I received a letter today from Mace Tyrell of Highgarden,” Ned begins, looking decidedly less enthused than her mother, “proposing a betrothal between you and his eldest son Willas.”

“Oh,” is all she can manage.

“He would like you to go to the Reach, meet his son, and see if you are agreeable to such an arrangement.”

“By myself?”

“No, of course not,” he says as her mother assures her, “No, I would accompany you.”

Her father fixes his gaze on her, studying her closely. “What are you thinking, sweetling?”

Sansa tries to gather her thoughts, forcing the most prominent one – that she’ll be leaving Jon – to the back of her mind. “It would certainly be an advantageous match, wouldn’t it, to be Lady of Highgarden some day? House Tyrell is quite prosperous, and it would be good for our house.”

“But?”

“The Reach is so far.” She swallows quickly to keep her voice from cracking. “But that is what ladies do, is it not? You left Riverrun for Winterfell. I’m sure it seemed just as far away as Highgarden seems to me.”

“We don’t have to accept his offer. Your mother and I have always agreed that we will not make a match without your consent.”

She cannot wed Jon. Sansa knows this, has known it from the moment they first kissed, but knowing something and truly facing it are two very different things. Still she forces herself to smile and manage, “There is no harm in meeting Lord Willas.”

By the time she leaves the solar, it is decided her mother, Arya, and Bran will accompany her to Highgarden with a small retinue of Stark men in a moon’s turn, and Sansa manages to wait until she is in her chamber to weep.

* * *

Jon does not seem surprised when she sneaks into his chamber that night, the news of her potential betrothal already all over the castle. He sits on the edge of his bed, elbows braced on his knees, head in his hands, and when she enters, barring the door behind her, he lifts his head, anguish on his face.

Neither of them speaks as Sansa undresses, letting her gown pool at her feet. She strips off her shift, dropping it to the floor, leaving her only in her smallclothes before Jon gets to his feet. He kisses her softly, cupping her face between his palms, and when the kiss is finished, she tugs his shirt out of his pants, working in concert with him until he, too, is only in his smallclothes.

“I love you, you know,” she murmurs between kisses. “I wish it could be you.”

“Be sure, love,” is all he says, touching her with hands so gentle, Sansa isn’t certain how she could be anything else.

It is surprisingly simple, taking Jon into her body. She clutches his shoulders, her knees drawn up to bracket his hips, moaning at the stretch of accepting him. Jon bites his lower lip as he sinks into her, and she soothes the mark his teeth leave behind with a swipe of her tongue. She trembles at the brush of her nipples against his chest as he moves above her, at the slickness of his skin beneath her hands, at the way he grunts her name when she clenches around his cock.

Her peak hits her hard, Jon’s calloused fingers working her as he thrusts, and as she tilts her head back, trying to swallow enough air to sate the burning in her chest, Sansa wonders how she’ll ever be able to give him up.

* * *

She knows anyone would think her some kind of wanton, seeking out Jon whenever she can, but she is painfully aware with each passing day that her trip to Highgarden approaches. It is why she feels no guilt feigning a headache during embroidery circle to meet Jon in the godswood or being late to supper after sneaking Jon into her chamber. He leaves fingerprint bruises on her hips that first day she smuggles him into her chamber, the danger of getting caught heightening it for both of them. 

But she prefers the evenings, curled around Jon in his narrow bed, certain nothing will ever feel as good as being his.

Tonight, after they’ve exhausted themselves and lay in a tangle of limbs, sweat cooling on their bodies, Sansa is tracing the lines of his chest when he murmurs, “I’m leaving Winterfell.”

“What? When?”

“When you leave.” She feels his fingers carding through her hair. “I’m going to White Harbor first – “

“Why?”

“To board a ship to go to Essos.”

“Essos? What’s in Essos?”

“Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen.” He kisses the top of her head, pulling her closer as she presses tighter against him. “Lord Stark said they’re staying as guests with a magister in Pentos. If we’re the last Targaryens, it seems only right I meet them.”

“And say what, you’re the bastard nephew of their brother and a woman he kidnapped?”

“I don’t know,” he admits, “but I know I can’t stay here.”

“Of course, you can! This is your home. This is – “

“I can’t stay here, Sansa. I can’t – I _won’t_ be able to stay here and watch you wed someone else.”

“I might not wed him.”

“But you’ll wed _someone_. If it isn’t Willas Tyrell, it will be some other highborn lord, and I’ll have to stand by as your bastard brother and watch it happen.” When she says nothing, he adds, “Would you want to watch me wed some other woman?”

“Of course not.” She sighs, resting her head against his chest, the steady thumping of his heart comforting beneath her ear. “I wish we could stay like this forever.”

“Me too.”

Her eyelids are starting to grow heavy, and she knows she should return to her room. Instead she whispers, “Would you marry me, Jon?”

His answer is a kiss on her forehead.

* * *

A week before she is meant to leave for Highgarden and Jon plans to leave for Essos, he tells their siblings of his plans. Not the whole truth, of course; he says he wants to see the world and isn’t certain of his return, and, as Sansa expected, Arya completely falls apart. As her little sister rages, sobs, and pleads alternately to go with him or for him to stay, Sansa envies her honesty, wishes she could do the same.

“It isn’t forever, little sister,” Jon tries to assure her, wiping her tears away with a gentle smile. “And when I return from my adventure and you return from yours, we can tell each other about what we’ve seen.”

“ _You’re_ having an adventure. I’m being dragged around the Seven Kingdoms to find Sansa a husband.”

“Mayhaps we’ll find one for you too,” Sansa cannot help but quip, earning barely hidden smiles from Robb and Rickon. “There must be some deaf man in the kingdoms who could withstand you.”

Arya glares, opening her mouth to fire back something cutting, but Jon intercedes, assuring her he will write, he will send gifts, he will do whatever it takes to keep Arya from complete despair.

There will be no letters for her. Sansa knows this, understands it. Whatever they want to say to each other, they must say now because once they leave, once she becomes Lady Tyrell and he finds his Targaryen aunt and uncle, they will have to return to playing at being brother and sister permanently.

It is why she asks him to meet her in the godswood in the middle of the night. 

She finds her way with Lady’s help, too afraid of being caught to bring a torch. While the castle settled for the night, Sansa dressed her hair and put on her finest gown, even using a bit of the stain on her lips Jeyne Poole gifted her on her nameday that her mother hates. Despite the warm spring days, there is a chill in the night air, a bit of frost on the grass. It is the crunching of the frozen grass that alerts her to Jon and Ghost arriving. With the silver moonlight filtering in through the trees, it makes Jon, dressed all in black, look like a shadow.

His kiss is warm as he greets her, and she sees the question in his face. They’ve met in the godswood plenty of times during the day but never at night, never like this.

When she explains her thought process, Jon looks so startled, she almost laughs. She isn’t the sort of person who catches people by surprise, and she understands now why Arya enjoys it so much. But as the surprise dissipates into stoicism, Sansa wonders if she’s misread the situation, if Jon isn’t going to want to do this.

“I know it won’t really mean anything, but we – we’d know we did it, that we meant it.” She shifts her weight back and forth, feeling as impatient as Rickon. “Say something, please.”

“I don’t have a cloak for you,” is all he says, and she laughs, clasping his face as she plants a quick kiss on his lips.

“We’ll make do.”

It is nothing like Robb’s wedding to Wynafryd. Her father does not offer her hand to Jon, and her mother does not beam with pride. There is no one to lead them through the ancient words, no one to proclaim them husband and wife. If Sansa is perfectly honest, she isn’t even certain they are saying the right things, following the order of things. All she knows is when Jon unties her cloak, replacing it with the plain, patched cloak he always wears, Sansa cannot imagine a more perfect wedding.

He takes her against the heart tree, her skirts rucked up, her marriage cloak protecting her back from the roughness of the trunk. It is too cold to undress, but all Sansa feels is the warmth of him against her, inside her.

When they slip back into the castle, she tries to give back Jon’s cloak, but he shakes his head, a sad smile tugging at his lips.

“It’s yours now and always.”

She will wrap herself in it every night for the next year, struggling to find even the slightest approximation of Jon’s embrace.

* * *

Jon leaves the day before she is to leave for Highgarden and does so without saying goodbye to anyone. She enters the hall to break her fast to find Arya sobbing, their father’s arms wrapped tight around her, and Sansa knows at once he’s gone.

She weeps in the godswood, kneeling before the heart tree, Lady whimpering at her side, and she prays to any gods who will listen to keep him safe, to let Jon find the family and the peace he deserves.

It was always going to be like this. She tells herself she has no right to be upset, no right to be furious at him, at her father, at Rhaegar-fucking-Targaryen.

But she is angriest of all at herself for ever starting this, for ever thinking she could love Jon in secret and let him go without it breaking her heart.

* * *

They spend a few days at Riverrun so they can see Grandfather Hoster and Uncle Edmure before journeying on to Highgarden, and it is there Sansa misses her moonblood for the first time since flowering when she was twelve. She lies to herself, convinces herself it is the stress of the journey, and forces the fear into the back of her head.

It does not come by the time they reach Highgarden and the night of the welcoming feast, Mace Tyrell piling the tables high with every dish possible, she finds she cannot eat a thing, the urge to be sick so strong, it takes everything she has not to vomit on her plate. Still she smiles as pleasantly as she can for Willas Tyrell.

He is so kind, so interested in who she is and what she believes, and she thinks she wouldn’t have minded being his wife even a year ago, would’ve thought the match was everything she always wanted.

“He seems besotted with you already,” Catelyn says later that evening as she brushes out Sansa’s hair as if she is still a child.

Sansa closes her eyes and hopes she sounds happy when she agrees.

* * *

She starts waking at all hours to empty her stomach, sometimes heaving so hard, she expects to find her heart in the basin. There is a washroom attached to her chambers, and Sansa cleans the basin herself, not wanting a servant to carry her secret back to the Tyrells. Still, it is hard to keep up appearances when she is always on the verge of vomiting, so exhausted she can scarcely keep her eyes open at times.

“Are you feeling all right, my lady?” Willas asks her when they are taking a turn through the exquisite rose gardens, Arya lingering a few steps behind them as a reluctant chaperone. “You look rather pale.”

“I’m unused to the heat here,” she lies.

“I suspect we’ll need to have more appropriate gowns made for you should you accept my proposal. I’m certain Margaery would delight in helping you find something that will help keep the heat at bay.”

“I would like that.”

Someone calls for Willas, and he begs her pardon before making his way towards the person seeking his attention. The moment he is out of her eyeline, Sansa cannot help herself and heaves into one of the rose bushes, splattering the grass with this morning’s bland breakfast of oatmeal and water. She is startled at the feel of Arya’s hand on her back, at her little sister gathering her hair away from her face, and she cannot even thank her for the kindness before heaving again. When she is finally finished, Sansa straightens, exhaling shakily, and she watches Arya kick dirt over her sick.

“Do you need the maester?”

Sansa shakes her head at once. “No, please don’t – don’t tell anyone about this.” When Arya raises an eyebrow, she adds, “It’s just nerves. It’s fine, Arya. Please don’t make a fuss about this.”

Arya meets her gaze for a long moment before finally nodding.

Two afternoons later, Arya appears in Sansa’s borrowed chamber while she’s attempting to nap. Sansa barely has a chance to sit up before Arya is clamoring onto the bed, pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged the way she had as a child. She is about to chastise Arya for putting her boots on the bed when Arya sets a sachet of herbs on the bed between them.

“I told Margaery they were for me. She says if you use them to make a tea, it will start to work within a half-day, but it’ll be a bloody affair.”

“Arya…”

“I won’t tell anyone. I can keep a secret better than anyone.” She scoots closer, surprising Sansa when she takes her hands. “But you must tell me the truth. Did someone hurt you?”

It makes Sansa want to cry, Arya’s desire to avenge her. “No, no one…I wasn’t forced.”

Clearly this is not the answer Arya expected from the way her eyebrows shoot up her forehead. “Is it Willas’s?”

Sansa is no expert on pregnancy, but they’ve only been in Highgarden for a fortnight; she doubts anyone gets mother’s stomach so quickly. “No. And that’s all I’m saying about the topic, so please don’t ask me more.”

Arya nods, gnawing on the corner of her lip the way Jon did when he was bothered. She hates how much Arya reminds her of him sometimes. “Do you want me to make the tea?”

She cannot have this child. For all of the lies she’s told herself over the past year, she isn’t so delusional as to believe she can give birth to Jon’s bastard. Never mind the fact that he is in Essos and may never return, never mind that any chance of a decent marriage would be gone; all she can think about is how disappointed her parents will be, how they will have to live with the shame she’s brought upon their house.

But still she finds herself saying, “I don’t know.”

Arya nods as if she understands and mayhaps she does, but Sansa cannot worry about that right now, not when there are so many more things weighing on her mind.

* * *

By the time they leave Highgarden, she has not bled in four moons and the herbs Arya procured for her are still hidden in her trunk. Arya has not asked her whether or not she ever made the tea, but she’s also never said a word to their mother either. Of that, Sansa is certain because Catelyn sings Willas’s praises the entire way back to Winterfell, discussing how kind and sweet he was, how he’d spoken so highly of Sansa during private conversations.

“I hate to have you so far away,” Catelyn says one evening when they are only a few days’ journey from home, “and I confess I had some reservations about the Tyrells, but Willas seems like a genuine, honorable man your father would also like.”

“Would you and Father really let me say no to him?”

“Of course. All we want is for you children to be happy. Why? Do you have reservations about Willas?”

“No, he is exactly the sort of man I always imagined marrying.”

“Then should we tell your father you agree to the match?”

Before she can answer, Arya drops a bowl of stew, and Sansa can never be sure, but she thinks her sister did it on purpose.

* * *

They return to Winterfell, greeted in the yard by Ned, Rickon, Robb, and a visibly pregnant Wynafryd. Robb crows with excitement about how his son will be born in three moons, how Wynafryd had wanted to keep it a secret until the baby quickened, and Sansa isn’t certain if the fluttering in her own stomach is nervousness or child’s heartbeat.

Arya slips into her bed a week after they get home, curling around Sansa’s body, resting the point of her chin in the hollow of Sansa’s shoulder. One arm reaches over Sansa in an approximation of a hug, her calloused hand resting against the firm curve of Sansa’s belly, small but evident in her thin night rail. Sansa’s own hand was already resting there, and her eyes fill with tears as Arya squeezes her hand. They have never been the tender sort with each other, but right now, Sansa thinks Arya may be the only person left in the world who will love her when she cannot keep the secret any longer.

“Why didn’t you take the tea?”

“Because it’s all that’s left.”

“Of what?”

“Him.”

Arya is quiet for a moment before asking, “Did you love him?”

Sansa nods.

“Can you marry him?”

Tears roll down Sansa’s cheeks as she thinks of the tattered cloak stuffed in her trunk, and she shakes her head, trying to stifle a sob.

“It will be all right. Jon’s a bastard, and he’s a good man.”

Sansa only cries harder, eventually falling asleep with Arya curled around her.

* * *

Arya volunteers to go with her to tell their parents, and while Sansa appreciates the offer, she knows she needs to do this alone. For all the warnings she’s received in her life about ladies who found themselves “in trouble,” Sansa has no idea what comes after the trouble is known. She cannot imagine her father putting her out, stripping her of her place at Winterfell, but she also knows this will bring such dishonor on their house. All she has ever wanted was to make her parents proud, and she knows this will do anything but.

Her father smiles when she enters his solar, and it makes her swallow back the instant urge to burst into tears. Her mother, on the other hand, seems to read the emotion on her face at once because she frowns and asks, “What’s wrong, sweetling?”

Stunned her voice is able to remain steady, Sansa manages, “I cannot marry Willas Tyrell. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t understand,” Catelyn says as Ned asks, “Did he do something – “

“No, no, Willas was a true gentleman and the Tyrells were wonderful to me. I would truly be lucky to join their house.”

“Then you’ll have to excuse my confusion as to why you do not want us to accept Lord Tyrell’s proposal.”

Unable to keep from twisting her hand in front of her stomach, Sansa gathers up every bit of courage she’s ever had and mayhaps even some she didn’t know she did. “I did something – I broke your trust, and I do not know how to say this – “

“Broke our trust?” Catelyn echoes before a hint of a smile plays at her lips. “Did something happen between you and Willas? Did you share a kiss? Those sorts of things happen prior to an official betrothal all the time – “

“I’m pregnant.”

Both of her parents freeze, the stunned expressions on their faces almost comical. Except Sansa isn’t certain anything will ever be funny again, not when she sees the words truly starting to sink in.

“If the child is Willas’s,” Catelyn begins but Sansa shakes her head and her mother’s voice dies away.

“Who?” is all Ned says, and the violence her father imbues in that one word is enough to make Sansa understand how he managed to slay Ser Arthur Dayne a lifetime ago.

The lie falls off of her tongue so easily, later she will wonder if she somehow crafted the story without any conscience thought. “I was in my cups. I don’t remember his name.”

“ _Sansa_ ,” Catelyn hisses, tears in her eyes, disappointment palpable, and still Sansa manages not to break down yet.

“I know I’ve dishonored our name and our house, and I have ruined any prospects I have. I will leave if that’s what you want, and I will understand if Arya is the only daughter you wish to ever claim again. But I hope – “ Her voice cracks, but she quickly recovers, pushing through. “But I hope you can find a way to forgive me for this and, more than that, let me remain a part of our family.”

“How many moons are you?”

“Four, I think? Mayhaps closer to five? I’m not certain.”

Ned gets to his feet, and for a single, wild moment, Sansa wonders if he is going to strike her. Instead he crosses to the window, keeping his back to her. “Go to Maester Luwin and have him examine you. Then go to your chamber. Stay there until we come.”

Though he cannot see her, Sansa nods, hurrying from the solar. The tears start sliding down her cheeks as she makes her way through the castle towards Maester Luwin’s chambers, praying to any god who will listen that when her parents come to her chamber, it is not to tell her to go.

* * *

After a startled Maester Luwin proclaims her to be almost five moons pregnant and otherwise healthy, Sansa returns to her room and waits. It is after night fall, servants having brought her a tray for dinner and cleared it away already, by the time her mother comes to her chamber. Her father is not with her, but she is flanked on either side by a furious looking Robb and an oddly stone-faced Theon. Sansa gets to her feet, prepared to receive her sentence.

“Your father has already written Mace Tyrell to inform him there will be no marriage between you and Willas,” Catelyn says, voice tight with anger and what Sansa suspects is grief. “He has suggested a solution for you to remain at Winterfell and not bring as much shame upon our house as having a bastard would.”

Sansa nods at once, prepared to do whatever her parents want so long as it means she will not be forced out of her home.

“You and Theon will wed tomorrow in the sept,” she continues, her blue eyes flicking towards Theon, who, for once, is not smirking but rather staring at his boots, “and he has agreed to claim your – your child as his own, to give it his name. Should King Robert ever allow Theon to be released from your father’s care, your father has agreed to provide you a holdfast in the North or, should Theon wish to return to the Iron Islands, you will go with him.”

“Does he – Do you _want_ to marry me?” Sansa cannot help but ask.

“No one is forcing me to wed you,” is all Theon says.

“If wedding Theon is something you do not want to do, then you will need to go.” Catelyn’s face cracks with pain as she declares, “There will be no more Snows at Winterfell, Sansa. Do you understand?”

She nods, brushing away a tear, and manages, “Thank you for your kindness, Theon. I shall see you in the sept in the morn.”

Robb, silent until now, steps forward and growls, “If you tell me the name of the arsehole – “

“Robb!” Catelyn snaps, and Robb quiets, the anger still simmering beneath the surface.

After they leave, all Sansa can think about is how her parents swore they would not force her to wed.

* * *

Her father does not come to the sept. In fact, other than her mother, siblings, Wynafryd, and Theon, no one comes to the sept. There is no celebration following the declaration she and Theon are now wed, and there is certainly no bedding ceremony. The servants, Ser Rodrik, Jory Cassel, even Old Nan, they all look at her with something like pity in their eyes, and Sansa wonders how Jon managed to live his entire life with everyone looking at him like he was a walking mistake.

Theon does not suggest moving into her chambers, and Sansa does not offer to make room for him either. In fact, after their wedding, she finds herself looking at Theon as if he is a stranger and not a pseudo-brother she’s known her entire life.

“I don’t even know your parents’ names,” she finds herself saying later as they sit in her chamber sharing a mostly silent, little supper together, the consummation of a sham marriage.

“Balon and Alannys.” Theon takes a bite of his roast. “I’ve been with your parents longer than I was ever with mine.”

“I know you had brothers,” she begins before stopping. The only reason she knows he had brothers is because they are dead, leaving Theon as the heir to House Greyjoy, and thus a hostage at Winterfell. 

He does not seem bothered by the mention of his lost brothers though as he nods. “I have a sister as well, Asha. She was older than me.”

“What was she like?”

“If she hasn’t changed in the past sixteen years? She’d be a more likely companion to Arya than you.” He shrugs. “I don’t remember her well. The day we left the Isles, King Robert told me to take a long, last look because I’d never seen them again.”

“You were just a child.”

Theon shrugs, pouring himself another cup of wine.

“Tell the truth,” she demands, pushing her plate away, the scent of the food turning her stomach. “Did my father force you to marry me? Are you _my_ hostage now instead of his?”

Theon finally cracks a smile with a shake of his head. “You think you’re a punishment?”

“I’m not an idiot. I’ve heard the whispers about you and…all the women. You’ve never once mentioned marriage to anyone, and I heard you tell Robb he was mad for wedding Wynafryd. And even if you wanted to get married, I doubt you wanted a bride pregnant with another’s child.”

“I’m another man’s child, and your father always treated me like he treated your brothers. Don’t see much of a difference.”

“But still – “

“I’m the heir of a traitor who was given to your father for safekeeping to remind my father another rebellion would get me killed. Do you think, heir to House Greyjoy or not, that any lord would want to wed his daughter to me? I would’ve been lucky to marry some daughter of a vassal.”

“So because I’m a daughter of House Stark, you agreed?”

Theon drains his wine cup, leaning forward to brace his elbows atop his knees. “We’re wed now, right? Let’s be honest then.”

“All right.”

“You’re fucking beautiful, Sansa. I’ve bedded my fair share of women and other men’s fair share too, and none of them can hold a candle to how beautiful you are. You’re quick-witted, you’re kind, near every Great House in Westeros tried to arrange a marriage between their sons and you, and your father offered you to _me_. And here I am, a gods damned hostage, growing up in this castle, desperate to be a Stark, and here was a chance.” He shakes his hair out of his eyes. “I don’t care if you’re a maid. I don’t care if the child you carry isn’t my blood. I don’t even care if you don’t love me, if you never love me. We like each other, don’t we? I mean, you don’t hate me?”

Sansa finally cracks a small smile. “No, Theon, I don’t hate you.”

“Then we’re already better than some marriage. We’ll sort out the rest later. We have the rest of our lives, right?”

“Right.” Remembering Theon’s request for honesty, she finds herself blurting out, “Please don’t fuck the servant girls anymore. The ones in Winter Town are fine, I suppose, but – “

“I’m rather attached to my cock, and Robb has already promised to remove it if I touch any woman who is not you so…”

“Oh. That seems unfair to you.”

“Well, I’m hoping at some point you _might_ want to share a bed with me. I’m rather charming, you know.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that.” She slouches back into her chair with a sigh. “I’ll try to be a good wife, even if our marriage hasn’t begun in the best of ways.”

“You lied, didn’t you?”

“About what?”

“I’ve known you your entire life. There’s no way you drank too much one night and fucked a stranger whose name you don’t know. That’s not who _I_ am, not you.”

Sansa is quiet for a long moment. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Theon tops off both of their wine cups before raising his in a toast. “To our marriage.”

When she is alone in her chamber, Jon’s cloak wrapped around her, Sansa wonders how long it will take her to think of anyone but Jon Snow as her husband.


	2. in some sad way i already know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the Sansa/Theon part with Jon only returning at the end, so I guess consider this your warning?

Sansa pretends it does not bother her when her father seems to look past her when they are in the same room. She doesn’t tell a soul how she’s kept count of the days since he’s spoken directly to her, pretends not to have noticed how the last time he said anything to her was the same day she confessed her pregnancy. As much as it hurts her, she made her choices; if her father cannot forgive those choices, she will live with the consequences.

But what breaks her, what tips her from pained but quiet acceptance to loud, messy sobbing, is her nephew.

It isn’t William’s fault, of course. Her russet-haired nephew is a sweet babe, and he quickly becomes the object of everyone’s adoration. Even so pregnant she can hardly bear the walk to Wynafryd’s rooms, Sansa still finds herself besotted with her nephew, with counting his little fingers and toes, and while she often catches her mother cradling William in her arms, she finds her father with the baby far more often, a truly doting grandfather.

Sansa knows her Grandfather Rickard did not live to see any of his grandchildren. King Aerys saw to that. She tells herself that is why her father is infatuated with his first grandchild; she tries to convince herself that when her own child is born, the ice between them will thaw so that he can love her child as much as he loves Will.

Six weeks after Will’s birth, Sansa enters the birthing bed herself, laboring for almost a full day before Maester Luwin pulls her daughter from her body. Arya, who has not left her side the entire time, tells her it is the most disgusting and beautiful thing she’s ever seen, and Catelyn, who has tears on her face, still manages to find time to chastise Arya for saying something so inappropriate.

“A perfect, little wolf,” Maester Luwin announces with a kind smile, placing the cleaned baby on Sansa’s chest, her navel cord severed, a length of linen draped over her for warmth.

“Oh, she looks like me!” Arya exclaims in delight, her voice thickening with emotion, and Sansa cannot argue with the assessment. Though her daughter’s eyes are shut tight as she cries, her head is capped in inky hair, far thicker than the smattering on Will’s head, and her skin is fair. There is a hint of the long Stark features on her face, and it is true: Sansa’s daughter looks like her aunt.

But more than that, Sansa’s daughter looks like her father, and it makes her heart ache.

Her brothers all tumble into the chamber to take turns holding their first niece, Rickon being forced to finally hand her over to an impatient Bran. Theon stands alongside Robb, a curious expression on his face, and when the baby makes her way to him, Theon holds her with the same awkwardness with which he holds Will, insisting he is going to drop her.

“You’ll get used to it,” Robb assures him, clapping him on the shoulder.

Wynafryd comes as well, bringing Will to meet his cousin, and they all marvel at the difference in their sizes. As Sansa sips some soup, she looks up to see her mother seated in a chair, Will in one arm, her daughter in the other, and Sansa thinks mayhaps she was right, that her daughter’s birth will bring about the forgiveness she desperately wants.

Maester Luwin eventually rustles everyone but Theon out of the room, insisting she and the baby need their rest, and Sansa almost asks why Theon is allowed to stay. Thus far their marriage had been much like their relationship prior to the wedding, which was to say occasional conversations. Other than embroidering a kraken on a doublet for him for his name day, she and Theon were no more a married couple than she and Hodor.

Which is why when Theon asks her if she’s chosen a name and she answers, “Jocelyn,” she’s startled to hear him say, “Jocelyn Greyjoy…Sounds fancy.”

Sansa feels like a complete idiot, but until he says it, she’d forgotten her daughter’s name would be Greyjoy. She knows her parents certainly found it preferable to “Snow,” but Sansa cannot seem to think of herself or her newborn daughter as Greyjoys.

Jocelyn makes a noise as if she is winding up to cry before settling again, and it is only when she is quiet that Sansa asks, voice barely more than a whisper, “Does my father know she’s here?”

Theon nods, the motion slower and more deliberate than usual, and Sansa can see him trying to puzzle out the correct response. “Robb and I were with him when we were told.”

“What did he say?”

“Sansa…“ Whatever he sees in her face makes him sigh and admit, “He said he had work to do, but we were free to go.”

“Oh.”

Her emotions have been unpredictable for the past few moons, but now they are fully uncontrollable. Sansa begins to cry, tears falling so fast down her cheeks, they land upon Jocelyn’s head, and as she begins to shake, Theon moves forward, his hands awkward as he takes the baby from her arms. She sobs then, near screaming the way she had during labor, and Theon, with his arms full of a baby that he is claiming as his own and a truly hysterical wife, looks as panicked as a hare who has caught sight of Lady in the woods.

“Should I get Lady Stark? Arya? Sansa, please – “

She wails, all of the sorrow and heartache she’d swallowed over the past year exploding from her body, and she has a wild thought that mayhaps if she’d died in the birthing bed like Aunt Lyanna, her father would have loved her again, forgiven her this sin, loved and protected Jocelyn as his own.

Sansa does not truly wish to die, but she isn’t certain she wants to live in a world where her father hates her either.

It takes four moons before Sansa’s grief begins to lift.

It is an accident, her discovery; Wynafryd had a terrible headache, and she’d asked Sansa to please return Will to the nursery after his feeding while she went to bed. Sansa is in the corridor leading to the nursery Will and Jocelyn share during the day when she sees her father slip from the room, a small smile on his face. He does not see her, hurrying in the opposite direction, and when Sansa enters the nursery, she finds Old Nan rocking a smiling Jocelyn near the window.

“Little Robb back so soon?” Old Nan asks, and Sansa wonders, not for the first time, if their nursemaid means “Little Robb” as a nickname or if old age has confused her, making her think she’s tending to Robb again.

“Wynafryd doesn’t feel well.” Carefully lowering Will into his cradle, she struggles to keep her voice even as she queries, “Was that my father I saw leaving?”

“Aye.”

“Did he need something?”

“Oh, just a snuggle with the little wolf,” she answers, wiggling an arthritic finger in front of Jocelyn’s face, prompting her daughter to squeal and grab at it.

“He came to see Jocelyn?”

“Aye, comes just about every day before midday meal. I warned him about spoiling the girl, but he’s always been a stubborn one.”

Sansa swallows the lump rising in her throat. “Every day, you say?”

“Mm-hmm. He loves his pups.” She smiles, revealing the empty spaces where teeth should be. “He used to do the same for you when you were in the cradle. It’s nice to have pups about again.”

Sansa offers a trembling smile, extending her arms to her daughter, who reaches at once. She inhales the clean scent of Jocelyn’s hair, pressing a kiss to her temple. Mayhaps her father hasn’t forgiven her quite yet, but he loves Jocelyn and Sansa thinks that matters more to her than anything else.

* * *

The raven from Jon arrives just prior to Jocelyn’s first name day. 

Sansa is sitting in the yard with Wynafryd, already swelling with her second child, Will and Jocelyn toddling on unsteady feet around them, Lady herding them back towards their mothers if they venture too far. It is a quiet, unexceptional day, as far as days go, and Sansa is in the middle of suggesting names for her next niece or nephew when Arya comes running out of the castle, a piece of parchment in her hand, shouting loud enough to be heard at the Wall, “Jon wrote! Jon wrote!”

It does not surprise Sansa when her siblings come running, particularly Bran and Rickon. It takes longer for Robb to join them, and Theon trails behind him, seemingly uninterested in whatever Jon has written. Sansa knows Jon and Theon were never friends, and she considers this as Jocelyn squeals in delight as Theon scoops her off of her feet, tossing her into the air with ease. He tosses her a second time, her laughter becoming borderline hysterical in a way that makes Sansa usually want to laugh along with her, but her stomach is twisting with anxiety as Arya begins to read Jon’s letter aloud.

Sansa vaguely hears Arya list the places Jon has seen and the oddities he’s seen. He asks after everyone at Winterfell, wishing them well, and Sansa closes her eyes as Arya adds, “’I have met someone, and I hope to bring her to meet you all soon. Her name is Ygritte.’”

She does not hear the rest of the letter, getting to her feet and shaking out her skirts. When she attempts to take Jocelyn from Theon’s arms, her daughter protests, trying to cling to him, and in frustration, Sansa leaves her to him, marching into the castle without looking back. 

If she had stayed, she would’ve heard Arya tell tale of how he’d left Essos, how he’d traveled to the Wall to see Uncle Benjen and take the black, but instead ended up befriending the wildlings the Lord Commander allowed through the gates. She would have heard how he wasn’t half of a world away after all, that if she sent him a raven, he could be back at Winterfell for her and Jocelyn before the new moon, but she didn’t, and it changes everything.

* * *

She’s never seduced someone before but, if the gossip about the castle is to believed Theon is not a man who needs much seduction. 

As it turns out, they are right. 

When she appears in his chamber with her hair loose, dressed only in her nicest night rail, Theon does not ask questions. He kisses her – rougher than she prefers but not so rough as to hurt her – and fucks her – different than how Jon had but not _bad_ , exactly – and afterward, Sansa stares up at the ceiling of his chamber, both of them naked and sweat-slicked, and waits to feel something other than a disheartening emptiness.

“Did it work?” Theon asks as he heaves himself into a seated position before crossing the room, pouring himself a cup of water and throwing it back in one gulp. He then wets a rag, returning to the bed to hand it to her, and Sansa blushes. For some reason, cleaning up the mess they’ve made of her thighs seems far more intimate than actually making that mess.

“Did what?”

“Did fucking me make you forget I’m not Snow?”

Sansa freezes, her blood going cold. “I don’t know – “

“I may not be as smart as you, but I’m not an idiot. I saw your face when Arya read that letter.” He frowns, picking up his pants from the floor and tugging them on. “And I’ve seen Joss’s face.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Yes, it is.” He sits back down on the mattress, and Sansa wishes she knew where her night rail had gotten to, wishes she never had to have this conversation but especially not while nude. “I won’t say anything.”

“Why not? My father and Robb forced you to wed me, to give Jocelyn your name. You didn’t get anything out of this until tonight.” She shakes her head, an angry tear escaping her eye. “I doubt I compare to any of the numerous women you’ve fucked in the past, so why keep the secret?”

“That’s who you think I am?”

“I don’t know who you are, Theon! That’s my point!”

“I’m your husband. I’m Jocelyn’s father. And I don’t fuck unwilling women, so don’t come to my room again looking for revenge.” His face is sad but stern as he adds, “I may not be as good of a man as your father or Robb, but I’m not a bad one either.”

“Theon…” she begins before realizing she has no words. Finally spotting her night rail across the room, she crosses to it, slipping it over her head and leaving him alone in his chamber, so ashamed of herself, she silently cries the entire walk back to her room.

* * *

She cannot bring herself to even look at Theon for the next three weeks, so deeply humiliated by what she did. Yes, she’d been upset about the letter from Jon and his new love. Yes, she’d been angry Jon found it so easy to fall in love again while here she was, married to a man she refused to allow herself to even think of that way out of a sense of loyalty. And yes, she wanted to prove to herself she could be with a man who wasn’t Jon, to find some sort of pleasure for herself. It wasn’t as if she didn’t like Theon, didn’t care about him in her own. He was kind to her and, better still, kind to Jocelyn, and it seemed unfair to make him live a lonely, celibate life because of choices she’d made. So yes, perhaps she’d meant to reward him with sex, but she didn’t think he was such a terrible man that it was the only reason he cared for her.

When she finally gathers up every bit of courage she has, Sansa finds him practicing his archery in the field. She knows he knows she’s there, standing quietly as he sends each arrow into the center of the target, placed so far in the distance, she cannot help but be impressed by his accuracy. It is only when all of his arrows are gone that Theon sighs, lowering his bow and turning to face her.

“I don’t think you’re a bad man,” she begins, unable to keep from twisting her hands in front of her body, “and I don’t think you’re a man who would bed an unwilling woman. If you were, what happened between us would’ve happened months ago. I’m sorry I made you feel as if I thought you were that sort of man.”

He exhales, sharp and deep. “Maybe I am though. I knew I wasn’t who you wanted the night you came to me, but I fucked you all the same.”

“I wanted you to fuck me.” She feels the burn of her cheeks, flaring even brighter when Theon’s eyes widen at her language, but she is determined to see this through no matter the embarrassment. “I may not have come to you for the right reasons, but I wanted what happened between us to happen. And it was – “ She is certain she is the same shade as her hair as she manages, “It was good, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he confirms, his voice seemingly dropping an octave, looking at her with the same hunger in his eyes she’d seen that night, “it was good.”

“Right, so…I know I owe you an explanation about it all, but there’s isn’t one, at least not one I can tell you. I’m sorry for that.”

“I knew when I agreed to this that you’d have your secrets. I just didn’t expect it to be Snow.”

“No one can ever know, Theon, especially my family. It would destroy everything.”

“You wanted it? Snow, I mean. What happened between the two of you?”

She nods. “You think less of me for it?”

“I don’t know what to think of it. I’m not – I thought it was some pretty knight or lord’s son, maybe a married man who told you he’d set aside his wife. I see how much you love Joss, so I knew you must’ve loved her father, but I didn’t – “ Theon shakes his head. “I don’t understand it.”

“Sometimes I don’t either. But I was hardly the first woman you bedded, right? So mayhaps we could just…What if we start over? No past for either of us, no more secrets, no more pretending at being married but _really_ being husband and wife?” When Theon says nothing, her stomach starts to churn. “You can think about it, obviously. I’ll leave you to – “

His bow is on the ground and his hands on her so quickly, Sansa is startled by the press of his mouth against hers. She quickly regains her senses, wrapping her arms around his neck and allowing her fingers to sink into his dark hair, wishing she didn’t notice how straight and fine it was rather than soft with curls.

Someday she will stop noticing the difference, Sansa tells herself, and she vows she will be a true wife to Theon from this day forward no matter what.

* * *

It feels different, loving a man in the open.

The first time Theon casually lifts her hand during supper, pressing a kiss to her fingers almost absently, Sansa nearly rips it away, panicked that someone might have seen. And then she remembers Theon is her husband, he is allowed to do such things, and she slowly relaxes. Soon she is near desperate for Theon’s casual affection, lifting her face up for kisses he is only too eager to provide, shivering each time his hand finds the small of her back as they walk together.

“You two are disgusting,” Robb laughs one afternoon when he finds them exchanging soft kisses in the glass garden, and Theon’s laugh when she pulls him down for a firmer kiss just to spite her big brother makes her smile against his mouth.

He is different in the bedroom than Jon. Without the heavy pall of secrecy hanging over their relationship, Sansa finds there is more laughter in their bed, fewer attempts at muffling moans; there is no sneaking through the hallways or panic at footsteps outside their chamber. Theon is far less precious with her than Jon. He thinks nothing of near-growling absolute filth into her ear, and Sansa finds she likes it, begs him for it. Some evenings he twists her into positions she didn’t know her body capable of, wringing pleasure from her with clever fingers and snaps of his narrow hips, and she understands now why the serving girls always whispered about him.

“Practice makes perfect,” he quips the one time she makes the mistake of asking how he was so good at something, and she left a bruise on his ribs from twisting the thin skin in a pinch _she’d_ perfected years ago on Arya.

Yara arrives just after Jocelyn’s third name day, a little kraken with Theon’s features and an absolute refusal to sleep for more than a half-hour for the first six months of her life. Jocelyn, who had wanted a little brother like Will had in Edmund, was deeply uninterested in her baby sister, even going so far as to ask if they could give her back to the gods when she wouldn’t stop screaming all through supper one evening, and Sansa hated how for an exhausted half-second, she wished it possible.

Jocelyn’s opinion – and, quite frankly, Sansa’s and Theon’s – changes towards Yara once the babe starts sleeping regularly, meaning all of them begin to sleep again. Of course, a lack of complete and total exhaustion all day every day also means she and Theon resume their marital relations, and before Yara’s second name day, Alanna arrives with Tully red hair and Stark grey eyes.

“Are you upset she isn’t a boy?” Sansa asks Theon as he cradles Alanna in the crook of his arm, Yara perched on his other knee, an only semi-interested Jocelyn resting her head against his shoulder as she looks down at her newest sister.

“I prefer being surrounded by beautiful women.” He throws her that cocky smile she’s come to love before turning a more paternal one on Jocelyn as he adds, “Of course, you’re my most beautiful one, hmm, Joss?”

“Yes,” she agrees with all the confidence of a well-loved five-year-old, and Sansa cannot help but chuckle with a shake of her head.

“Her head will be as big as yours if you keep it up,” she chastises as Yara slips from his lap, toddling over to where Lady lays stretched before the fire.

“I want to be like Papa,” Jocelyn declares, earning another smile from Theon, and Sansa hates the painful lurch her heart gives each time she hears Jocelyn refer to Theon as such.

Jocelyn worships Theon with the same love Sansa once had for her own father, and she prays to the Old Gods and New that Jocelyn never learns sometimes love is conditional.

* * *

Arya insists their father doesn’t hate her, but even six years after her marriage to Theon, Sansa isn’t so certain it’s true.

Sometime during her pregnancy with Yara, Ned Stark stopped wholly avoiding Sansa, and, unlike with Jocelyn, he’d come to her chamber to see his latest grandchild, even offering a small smile. By the time Alanna arrives, he has softened enough that he will engage Sansa in small talk, but Sansa is not sure the gap between them will ever be fully closed.

Jocelyn adores her grandfather because Will adores his grandfather, and, as she and her eldest cousin are never apart, she spends a great deal of time following him around the castle. Despite Sansa and Catelyn’s best efforts, Jocelyn is more like Arya in temperament than Sansa, truly uninterested in anything traditionally feminine and desperately interested in doing anything Will is allowed to do. Theon, always more indulgent than Sansa, gifts Jocelyn a bow, and it is only through Sansa’s threats that he keeps from giving her a sword as well.

“She is a _lady_!”

“Ladies are different on the Iron Isles.”

“But we are not on the Iron Isles, and in the North, she is going to be expected to behave like a proper lady.”

Theon looks at her with a puzzled expression, and his words upend Sansa’s thinking entirely. “I wouldn’t have thought after all you’ve been through that you’d be so eager to have our daughters be trapped by tradition.”

She lets Jocelyn keep the bow but stands firm against the sword.

Ned gifts both Will and Jocelyn ponies for their fifth name days, and soon Jocelyn is a better rider than Sansa has ever been. The children are returning from a ride with their grandfather and Rickon one afternoon when Sansa is in the yard, and she watches as Rickon shows them how to return their ponies to the stables.

“She’s a strong rider,” Ned tells her, pride in his voice, and Sansa cannot help but think of Jon, of how he and Arya would race through the wolfswood a lifetime ago. “She’ll need a true horse when she’s outgrown her pony, not a docile, little mare.”

“No, something tells me Jocelyn will never stand for a docile anything.”

“She reminds me a great deal of your aunt Lyanna.”

Sansa hopes her face does not give away the panicked fluttering of her stomach. “You never speak of her.”

“No, I suppose I don’t.” They watch as Will and Jocelyn come rushing out of the stable, both squealing as they attempt to outrun Rickon, who is pursuing them with a playful growl. “I wasn’t much older than those two when I was sent to Jon Arryn, and Lya was Yara’s age. By the time we began to get to know each other, I fear we were both already who we were meant to be.”

Sansa is not certain why her father is saying these things, why he has chosen to string together the most words he’s said to her in years at this moment, but she is afraid to even breathe for fear he will stop.

“I loved Lya a great deal, but I’m not sure I truly knew her.” He looks at her then, _really_ looks at her, and Sansa’s heart breaks as he says, “Unfortunately I think the same happened between us.”

She manages to hold her voice steady as she offers, “Is that what you think, that if you’d known me better, it wouldn’t have happened?”

“We’ll never know.”

And there is something in the resignation of his voice, the pain in his eyes, that transforms Sansa’s sadness into anger. Though she keeps her voice even, her tone low enough not to be overheard, she finds herself snapping, “Mayhaps you didn’t know Aunt Lyanna as well as you wanted to because she was afraid for you to know who she truly was, because she knew you only wanted her to be what you thought she was. Mayhaps she knew there’s no way to earn your forgiveness because you don’t make mistakes like the rest of us. Mayhaps she didn’t think her mistakes were mistakes.” Voice finally cracking, tears cascading down her cheeks, she adds, “I may have made poor decisions in my life, but Jocelyn is not one of them.”

Her father looks stricken as he reaches for her, but Sansa shakes off his hand, needing to get as far from him as possible.

When Arya finds her later in the godswood, her little sister doesn’t say a word. Instead she lets Sansa lay her head in her lap and sob until she has nothing left.

* * *

The raven announcing Balon Greyjoy’s death arrives two days after her fourth child quickens in her womb.

Theon sits in silence at the window of their solar, staring out at the yard, when Sansa reaches him. She’d been trying to wheedle Yara into eating a vegetable during midday meal when Robb found her, telling her the news, and Sansa isn’t certain how she expects Theon to react. Though their marriage is as strong as Robb and Wynafryd’s, Theon seldom speaks of his birthplace or family with any real affection. The closest he came was when telling stories of his older sister or some person in service to House Greyjoy, but Balon Greyjoy never seemed to enter his thoughts.

“Will there be a funeral?” she queries as she takes the chair opposite of him, resting a hand on the small bulge on her stomach. “I’m sure we can make arrangements – “

“They won’t wait for me. They’ll give his body to the Drowned God long before I’m able to reach the islands.” 

“All right. I’ll have the servants start packing our things – “

Theon finally shakes out of his stupor, looking at her. “What?”

“Our things, the children’s things – “

“No, we’re not – you’re not – “

“You’re his heir – “

“He wanted it to be Asha!” Theon sighs, looking torn between shame and resignation. “I wrote him to tell of our marriage, of our girls, and he told me that I was finally a Greenlander through and through, that he was right to consider Asha his true heir. He wanted her to have the Seastone Chair, not me.”

It is not right to speak ill of the dead, which is why Sansa chokes back every insult she wishes to hurl at Balon Greyjoy. “No matter what he wished, I know what _my_ father’s bannermen would do if he suddenly declared _me_ to be lord of Winterfell over Robb, and I cannot imagine the men of Iron Islands would be react any other way. At the least we should go, look after your mother – “

“Even if Asha does not take his throne, my uncles will want it for themselves, and I cannot…” He reaches across the table, taking her hand and squeezing it a touch too tight. “They’re not good men.”

“But – “

“No, Sansa, you don’t understand. I don’t mean they’re dishonorable; I mean they’d kill all of us, even the babe inside of you, if it meant they would sit the Seastone Chair at the end. You and the children cannot come near Pyke until it is safe.”

“Is it safe for _you_?” she asks, voice trembling.

“No,” he states, flat and blunt, “but I have to go.”

Sansa tries to smile. “I’m sure you’ve missed home.”

He lifts her hand, pressing a firm kiss to her knuckles. “ _You’re_ home.”

There was a time when such a sentiment would’ve made her melt, but it does nothing to calm the fear in her chest. Sansa understands better than most just how quickly you can lose someone you love.

* * *

Yara and Alanna do not truly understand how this trip differs from the few weeks Theon has spent away at other holdfasts accompanying Robb on his duties, but Jocelyn does. Her eldest, now seven, a head taller than Will with ebony curls always coming unbound from the braid she barely submits to allowing her mother to attempt in the mornings, is furious she is not being permitted to travel to Pyke to see all that the Iron Islands offer, meet her famous Aunt Asha, and have an adventure.

“If I was a boy, you’d let me go,” Jocelyn harrumphs after Theon has kissed their younger girls, allowing them to go off with Septa Mordane rather than force them to remain much longer in the yard. 

“If you were a boy, I’d paddle for you for having such a smart mouth.”

Even through her frustration, Jocelyn cannot help but smirk. “No, you wouldn’t. You love me too much.”

Theon smirks, and Sansa wonders how Jocelyn can have so many of his mannerisms when they do not share a drop of blood. “Your mum needs you here. How’s she going to chase after your sisters when her stomach’s so big, she can’t see her feet?”

“She could see her feet if you’d stop having babies all the time.”

“And how are we going to give you that little brother you want so much if we don’t have more babies?” Despite the fact she’d fight anyone else who attempted it, Theon lifts her off of her feet; they are eye-to-eye, and Jocelyn wraps her limbs around him as if she is still Alanna’s age. “If I could bring you with me, you know I would. You’re worth ten of any boy.”

Sansa looks away as Jocelyn’s lower lip begins to tremble, the indignation leaving her voice as she all but whimpers, “Promise you won’t be gone long.”

“I’ll be back as quick as I can, I swear it.” He rests his forehead against Jocelyn’s. “Now you promise me you’ll mind your mother and help with your sisters.”

“Yes, Papa.” She hugs him tight around the neck, whispering her love for him, and Sansa cannot hear what Theon whispers back, but it makes her smile before he puts her back on her feet and she retreats to Will, who has already said his goodbyes to his uncle.

“If you promised her a sword, I swear to the gods, Theon Greyjoy,” Sansa begins, letting the rest of her threat be drowned out by his laughter.

They kiss, long and lingering, his hand coming between them to rest on the restless child beneath her skin. “I’ll be home by the time he comes.”

He tells her he loves her. He says goodbye. When he is almost out of sight, he turns atop his horse to take one last look at her.

At least this time, she tells herself, when the man she loved left her, she didn’t just wake to find him gone.

* * *

She hears the scuffle in the yard a fortnight after Theon leaves, someone shouting a blue streak of curses at someone else. Sansa moves to the window, prepared to curse her own blue streak at whoever is raising such a ruckus while she’s trying to put the girls down for an afternoon nap, and freezes in true disbelief when she sees the shouter is Bran, of all people, a dagger in hand, threatening Mikken’s apprentice while Arya attempts to keep them separated.

It takes Sansa longer than she’d like to reach the yard, and by the time she does, Robb, Rickon, their father, and Ser Rodrik are there as well, separating Bran and the apprentice, Arya remaining close to the apprentice as if she plans on shielding him from something. Sansa cannot remember the apprentice’s name, but she knows their father took him on as a favor to King Robert, the handsome man being one of the king’s many bastards. And as she sees the look exchanged between him and her sister, Sansa suddenly thinks she understands why Bran is attempting to duel a man twice his size and strength.

“Is Uncle Bran going to kill Gendry?” Will asks as he and Jocelyn, crouching behind a cart for a full view, as Sansa pauses.

“No,” she snaps, “and you two should be with Maester Luwin. Get inside now.”

“I want to see the duel,” Jocelyn objects.

“There isn’t going to be a duel!” When neither her daughter nor her nephew moves, Sansa grasps them both by the sleeves of their shirts, pulling them from their hiding place, and shouts over her shoulder, “Bran, will you please tell your niece and nephew you do not plan on killing Gendry this afternoon?!”

Bran, a brother holding each arm, seems to lose all of his fight as he takes sight of the children and their wide eyes. He looks at Sansa, face full of apology, and barely manages to say, “I’m not going to – “

“See? Now go find Maester Luwin!” Once the children have finally agreed, she takes stock of the group and adds, “I don’t know what’s going on, but if any of you wake Yara and Alanna from their nap, I’ll duel you myself. We’re not wildings; we don’t kill each other in the yard.”

Bran looks suitably chastened, enough so that Robb and Rickon release hold of him, but Arya still insists, “We weren’t doing anything wrong!”

Sansa is about to tell her to hold her tongue when she rushes on and says, “Gendry and I are in love, and we want to get married.”

This time, it is Rickon who charges Gendry, and the whole scrum begins again.

* * *

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Arya continues to insist later when she and Sansa are alone in Sansa’s chamber. “We were just kissing.”

“Bran drew a blade. I highly doubt he’d do that just for some kissing.”

A hint of pink rises on Arya’s cheek as she concedes, “It might have a _bit_ more. But he acted like he walked in on us fucking over an anvil or something.”

“Arya!” Sansa pauses. “Have you done that?”

“Oh, don’t play so innocent. I saw what you and Theon were doing that time in the kitchens.”

This time, Sansa blushes. “I wasn’t judging. I was simply asking.”

“I don’t understand why everyone got so upset. I don’t care if Gendry isn’t trueborn, so why do they? It’s just a stupid name.”

“Stupid names matter in Westeros.”

“Would you let your girls wed a bastard?”

“I want them to be happy. It would be easy to say I wouldn’t care if that’s what makes them happy, but there’s security in a name, and all parents want their children to be safe.”

“Gendry makes me feel safe. Not that I need him to, but he does. Does Theon make you feel safe?”

Sansa rolls the question around in her head as her unborn child kicks her sharply in the ribs. Theon makes her feel many things, but she isn’t certain safety has ever been one of them. Finally, she settles on, “Theon makes me feel like our children are safe, and that matters more.”

“What about the other?”

“Other what?”

Arya looks at her as if she is stupid. “The other man, Jocelyn’s father. Did _he_ make you feel safe?”

Sansa winces at another kick, pressing her hand against her stomach. “No, he couldn’t. That wasn’t…It wasn’t possible for us to have…I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Was he a bastard?”

“Arya, please.”

Arya is quiet for a moment before asking, voice soft as a whisper, “Do you think Father is going to send him away?”

“What good would it do? You’d just chase after him.” Trying not to feel sick with jealousy, Sansa says, “Father loves you too much to lose you. He’ll give you what you want.” 

As it turns out, Sansa is right. By the new moon, King Robert has legitimized Gendry to give him the Baratheon name, and Catelyn begins to plan a wedding Arya is impatient to have. Sansa wants to be genuinely happy for Arya, but the resentment in her gut at how quickly her parents have forgiven Arya’s unladylike behavior gnaws at her. Still she smiles, embroidering the Baratheon stag on Gendry’s cloak for the ceremony, trying not to think of the cloak buried in her trunk, the one she’s tried to throw away several times before tucking it away again.

But for all of her foresight regarding Arya’s wedding, she is completely blind to one massive truth: Arya would never marry without her favorite brother in attendance.

* * *

There’s silver in his beard now.

It is a silly thing to notice, particularly when she hadn’t been expecting to see him at all, but when Sansa enters the great hall to break her fast to find Jon there, it is all she can see. If all she can focus on is the hints of silver in his beard, she cannot focus on the wild beating of her heart, of the overwhelming gratitude and excitement and absolute terror warring for dominance inside of her.

And that is all before she remembers she is eight moons pregnant with her husband’s child, two children hanging on her skirts, and the child they made together somewhere in the castle, just waiting to be discovered.

“Bread!” Alanna demands as she clamors onto a bench, drawing out the word to have extra syllables in the way only small children can do, far more focused on her breakfast than any new visitors to the castle.

“Manners,” she chastises distantly, placing a buttered roll within her youngest’s reach, pouring cups of honeyed milk for both girls.

“Look who managed to find his way home!” Robb crows, throwing an arm around Jon’s shoulders, and there is silver in Robb’s beard now too, but Sansa doesn’t notice that right now. 

“Your ship must have been fast.”

“Ship?” Jon echoes, brow furrowing, and that is when Sansa noticed there is a small boy tucked almost invisibly against Jon’s leg, his wild curls as dark as the ones Jocelyn refuses to allow Sansa to manage anymore.

“From Essos.”

“I haven’t – I’ve been in the North for years now, on the Gift. I thought – I sent ravens.”

“You’ve been in the North,” she repeats, struggling to keep calm, resting her hands on the massive curve of her stomach. “Of course.”

“This is Abel,” Edmund volunteers, and Sansa almost starts as she realizes she hadn’t noticed her nephew at all. “He’s our cousin. He’s seen a giant.”

“Giants aren’t real,” Yara says around a mouth full of porridge, and the introduction of Jon’s son gets lost in the bickering between Edmund and Yara. Sansa is grateful for the familiar distraction, needing to look anywhere but at Jon and his son, afraid of her reaction when his wife joins them.

And then Arya enters the hall, screaming when she sees Jon, and Sansa is able to pretend everything is fine.

* * *

She goes into labor that night, the pain ripping her from sleep. It is earlier than she’d like; she thought she’d have another moon, and Theon said in his last raven, he would likely be back at Winterfell before that time came. But like Yara and Alanna, this kraken comes on like a hurricane, demanding to be born on its own timetable.

It is her fastest labor, Maester Luwin barely in her chamber for an hour before her latest daughter slips from her body, smaller than any of her sisters had been, dark-haired and terrifyingly silent. Catelyn reads the fear on her face because she rushes to Maester Luwin to check on the baby while Arya mops her brow and assures her everything is fine.

Sansa does not believe it until she hears the breathy, tremulous cry of her daughter.

“She’s a fighter, my lady,” Maester Luwin says as he swaddles her in heavy furs. “You’ll need to keep her very warm and watch her breathing. She may struggle because she’s early.”

“She’ll be all right,” Wynafryd states, voice firm and steady. “My sister was born earlier than her, and she’s strong as an auroch.”

Sansa looks at the tiny bundle placed in her arms, at her bow mouth open to take quick breaths, and her eyelids flutter, revealing the colorless blue of all newborns. But unlike her sisters, this babe doesn’t close her eyes right away; instead she seemingly meets her mother’s gaze for a moment before drifting close again. 

“You didn’t want to miss all the excitement, hmm, sweetling?” she murmurs, stroking a fingertip down the bridge of her upturned nose. “You’re impatient like your papa.”

The sun has barely risen when Ned and Catelyn bring the children to meet their new sister. Sansa expects Jocelyn to complain about another sister the way she has the past two times, but her daughter surprises her by lifting Alanna onto the bed and insisting Yara use careful hands when touching the baby. 

“Papa will be sad he wasn’t here,” Jocelyn murmurs, face folded in concentration. “Why isn’t he back yet?”

“He’ll be back soon. Remember his letter?” When Jocelyn’s face darkens even more, Sansa repeats, more certainty in her voice than she feels, “He’ll be back soon.”

It is almost midday when Jon and Abel appear in her doorway. Sansa is dozing, the baby asleep on her chest, when she sees them, and suddenly she is wide awake. Abel, still tight against Jon’s side, has a clutch of wildflowers in his hand, and when she greets them, the little boy steps forward, the flowers extended before him with a stiff arm.

“Congratulations, Aunt Sansa,” he mumbles, his voice so soft, it is almost inaudible. There is a hint of an accent to his words, a bit rougher than the usual Northern accent, and it occurs to Sansa she’s never wondered how wildlings sound.

“Thank you, sweetling. They’re very pretty.” When Abels sets the flowers on her bedside table, Sansa gets her first true look at him. He looks older than Yara, tall and lean, and Sansa sees all the similarities between him and Jocelyn. There is something sad in his Stark grey eyes, and it is that sadness that prompts her to ask if he’d like to hold the baby.

His eyes go wide, looking at Jon with something akin to panic in his eyes.

“He’s never held a baby before,” Jon explains, and Sansa wonders how often he must be his son’s voice.

“No little brothers or sisters then?”

Abel shakes his head while Jon informs her, “His mother passed in the – in the birthing bed with him. I wanted to show him you were all right. He was concerned.”

Sansa’s heart breaks for the boy, and she finds herself scooting across the bed, wincing with pain as she does so. “Well, then, you should see your cousin properly.”

As Abel inches nearer to the bed, his eyes fixed on the bundle in her arms, Sansa struggles not to wonder if this is what it would’ve been like if she and Jon had a son.

From the look on Jon’s face, he is trying and failing at the same thing.

* * *

She calls the new baby “Thea,” sending a raven to Pyke to tell Theon of her arrival with the hope he doesn’t receive the missive because he is already headed back to Winterfell. Sansa tells herself the desire for him is pure; she misses him, the girls miss him, and she wants him to see their latest child. But she also wants him back because Jon is still here, still wandering the castle even after Arya’s wedding, and it utterly unnerves her.

If Sansa is honest with herself, which admittedly is not her strongest suite when it comes to Jon Snow, the way she treats Jon now is similar to how she did before ever learning of his true origins. She has her hands full with the girls, literally in the case of Thea, and she sticks close to her mother, guaranteeing Jon will not approach. It is a coward’s way, and Sansa isn’t proud of it, but it is what she has to do.

But what truly eats at her is Jocelyn, who has adopted Abel as her own.

From the moment they were born, Jocelyn and Will were inseparable, and Sansa never saw one without the other. But with Abel’s appearance at Winterfell, they are now three, infuriating Edmund, who had tried fruitlessly to break into their partnership since birth and Yara, who had hoped to claim Abel the way Jocelyn laid claim to Will. Now every story Jocelyn told began with “Will and Abel,” and the anxiety it gives Sansa makes her even more impatient for Theon’s return. Jon will not stay if Theon is there. Sansa may not know what Jon thinks of her marriage, but she knows Jon will not want to bear witness to it.

Thea is almost two moons old when Jon mentions he and Abel will need to return home soon. Sansa is seated down the trestle table from him, but she hears him mention some man called Tormund and a half-explanation to Robb about his duties mediating between the Free Folk and the Night’s Watch. Sansa is attempting to keep Alanna from eating her weight in fruit when Jocelyn exclaims, “But you can’t go before our name day!”

Jon smiles, looking at Jocelyn and Will, so close together on the bench their sides touch. “Do you have the same one?”

“Almost,” Will says. “I’m older.”

“Barely! We always have a feast halfway between his name day and mine, and you and Abel _must_ stay for it.”

“You’ll be turning eight, hmm, Will?” he asks, taking a sip from his cup of wine. “And how old will you be, Jocelyn?”

Sansa feels as if times slows down, seeing what is about to happen but unable to do anything to stop it. And then Jocelyn says, a semi-aggrieved expression on her face, “I’ll be eight too! I told you, we’re almost the same.”

In the muted light of the hall, Sansa hopes no one else can see the way Jon’s face loses its coloring, at the way his eyes flit between Jocelyn and Abel, seated on the other side of Will. By the time his eyes flick towards Sansa, she is already rising, needing to put as much space between the two of them as possible.

She wonders if it is too late for _her_ to flee to Essos.

* * *

The letter arrives, sealed with the kraken of House Greyjoy, and Sansa breaks it open at once, grateful to finally have word from Theon even as she wonders why he has not yet begun his trip back to Winterfell.

She doesn’t recognize the handwriting on the parchment, and a quick glance at the bottom reveals the author is Asha. Sansa’s stomach drops, wondering why her good-sister would write her after eight years, certain it is not good news. Thea begins to whimper in the cradle as if she knows, too, something is not right, and Sansa thinks she should go get someone: her mother, Arya, Robb, _anyone_ to be there while she reads Asha’s words.

But she also cannot seem to make her legs work, so she is alone when she learns Theon has been killed by his uncle Euron.

_He believed, so long as Theon lived, his claim on the Seastone Chair would not be legitimate. Theon swore he had no want of it, that he only wished to return to you and your children, but Euron thought it was a way for Theon to return with Stark forces. I will spare you the details, but I watched Theon with my own eyes. Our uncle Damphair gave his body to the Drowned God, the proper place for a Greyjoy, but I am sure that gives you no peace. Please know I will do everything I can to avenge my brother._

She never does learn what the rest of Asha’s letter says. Her vision blurs, her eyes full of tears, and Thea, even with her weaker lungs, is shrieking. Sansa still cannot seem to make her legs work to collect her baby, and after a moment, a serving girl comes in, stopping in surprise when she realizes Thea is not unattended. If the servant speaks to her, Sansa doesn’t remember what was said. The next thing she is aware of, her parents are in her room, her father taking the letter from her hand while her mother attempts to quiet Thea, asking Sansa what is wrong.

There are no words for this, so Sansa doesn’t say a thing.

* * *

There can be no funeral for Theon, and Sansa knows he would not want one. He didn’t care for any god – Drowned, Old, or New – and only ever participated in something if he must. Sansa still lights candles in the sept for him, still kneels before the heart tree and asks for the Old Gods to watch over him, to watch over the girls. Neither Yara or Alanna truly comprehend what “dead” is, but Jocelyn is alternately despondent or enraged, sobbing one moment and then screaming the next. She hasn’t seen such volatility since Rickon learned to manage his tempers, and sometimes Sansa brings her to the godswood as well, both of them silently praying.

“I don’t understand,” Jocelyn murmurs one afternoon when they are in the godswood together, looking downright lost. “Why would his uncle do that?”

“His uncle is a bad man, and bad men do bad things.”

“But kinslaying is the _worst_ thing. The gods curse you for it.” She folds her arms over her chest. “I hope the gods curse him. I hope they make him die too!”

Sansa knows she should correct her, should tell her it isn’t a ladylike thing to say, but instead she says, “I do too.”

The sound of footsteps draws their attention, and Jon freezes as he enters the clearing. He offers an apology for interrupting them, making to leave, but Jocelyn is on her feet, asking after Abel. When his location is known, she looks to Sansa, expectation on her face, and Sansa nods, watching her disappear through the trees.

“She’s a good girl,” Jon offers after an uncomfortable pause.

“She’s half-feral,” Sansa corrects as she gets to her feet, “and the half that isn’t was spoiled rotten by Theon. All she had to do was ask, and he’d give it to her. They were always thick as thieves.”

“I’m glad he was good to her.”

The words cut her to the quick, her own temper bristling. “Don’t.”

Jon blinks. “Are we never to discuss it then?”

“There is nothing to discuss.” Unable to stop herself, she adds, “You saw to that.”

“What? _I_ saw to it? I didn’t even know – “

“No, you didn’t because you left!” She advances on him, uncertain what she is going to do, uncertain of _anything_ except everything she is feeling is too big for her body. “You snuck off like a thief in the night, rushing off to find your _true_ family – “

“You were going to be marrying Willas Tyrell!” he shouts back, looking at her as if she’s gone mad. “You knew I was leaving! I left because _you_ were leaving! There was no way for me to know – “

“No because you got on the first ship to Essos and never looked back! You didn’t care what happened to _me_ , so why would you care about _her_?”

“That’s shit, and you know it! I was heartbroken, Sansa. I couldn’t come back then, not when I thought you’d married Tyrell and not when every bloody thing reminded me of you!”

“I waited for you!”

“You wed Theon!”

“Because I _had_ to! And still I waited, waited until _you’d_ already fallen in love with Abel’s mother before I even so much as kissed him.” She balls her hands into fists, pounding them ineffectually against the wall of his chest. “And now he’s gone, and it’s not right! I didn’t love him well enough, I didn’t appreciate him, and it’s _your_ fault! It’s _your_ fault!”

The words continue to fall from her mouth as Jon carefully catches her wrists, wrapping her in an embrace as she begins to sob. As her legs give out, Jon lowers them to the ground, and Sansa just cries.


End file.
